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New Shale Era: The Age Of The Engineer

Oil and gas is witnessing a transition from the geologists to the era of the engineer as completion optimization supplants exploration and delineation as the sector’s primary driver.

A version of this story appears in the December 2017 edition of Oil and Gas Investor. Subscribe to the magazine here.

Is oil and gas replicating the narrative in “Lord of the Rings”? You remember the final chapter in the imaginative trilogy where Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, the two diminutive ring bearers, board a boat in the exotic fleet of elves, wizards and legends who are sailing away from Middle Earth, signaling the end of one era and birth of another.

Similarly, oil and gas is witnessing a transition from the geologists, or the wizards of the shale era, to the engineer as completion optimization supplants exploration and delineation as the sector’s primary driver. No specific date marks the transition. Rather, it is a general sense of things, like the feeling you get when seasons change. A short-term example is underway now as the arc of rig count flattens in 2017 and completion optimization begins to dominate the conversation in E&P earnings calls.

Richard Mason is chief technical director at Hart Energy. He has 20 years of experience in oil and gas writing and publishing. He served previously as director of research for PLS Inc. and as owner and publisher of The Land Rig Newsletter.